Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/360

Rh and they had all been out sleighing; but it would be much nicer when Justine came back.…

It was as difficult to extract any sequence of facts from Cicely’s letter as from an early chronicle. She made no reference to Amherst’s return, which was odd, since she was fond of her step-father, yet not significant, since the fact of his arrival might have been crowded out by the birth of the kittens, or some incident equally prominent in her perspectiveless grouping of events; nor did she name the date of her mother’s departure, so that Justine could not guess whether it had been contingent on Amherst’s return, or wholly unconnected with it. What puzzled her most was Bessy’s own silence—yet that too, in a sense, was reassuring, for Bessy thought of others chieﬂy when it was painful to think of herself, and her not writing implied that she had felt no present need of her friend’s sympathy.

Justine did not expect to ﬁnd Amherst at Lynbrook. She had felt convinced, when they parted, that he would persist in his plan of going south; and the fact that the Telfer girls were again in possession made it seem probable that he had already left. Under the circumstances, Justine thought the separation advisable; but she was eager to be assured that it had been effected amicably, and without open affront to Bessy’s pride.

She arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and when she [ 344 ]